1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for detecting the location of a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for detecting the location of a vehicle using results sensed by sensing devices installed outside the vehicle and the internal information of the vehicle without obtaining the current location information of the vehicle using signals transmitted from a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, a Global Positioning System (hereinafter referred to as a “GPS”) has been utilized in various fields. In particular, a GPS has been actively used as a navigation device for guiding a user within a vehicle to his or her destination, and has been mounted even on a camera or a mobile phone to play an important role essential to the provision of various types of services.
For example, in the fields of a vehicle that is being driven autonomously in an unmanned manner, information about the current location of the vehicle is information essential to unmanned driving. Therefore, a high-performance GPS is used in fields related to a vehicle that is being driven autonomously in an unmanned manner, and, additionally, the precise current location of the vehicle is obtained using additional sensors such as an acceleration sensor and a compass sensor.
However, a problem arises in that it is difficult to popularize a high-performance GPS due to the high price thereof, and it is difficult to use a low-performance GPS in unmanned autonomous driving due to the errors thereof.
Further, in order to commercialize vehicles that are being autonomously driven in an unmanned manner, the precision of the current location information of each vehicle that is most essential to unmanned autonomous driving must be maintained at a high degree of precision while the prices of the sensors mounted on the vehicle are minimized.